Olema Oncology is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company based in San Francisco that develops targeted small-molecule therapies for ER+/HER2- metastatic breast cancer and other women's cancers. Its lead candidate, palazestrant (OP-1250), is an oral complete estrogen receptor antagonist and selective ER degrader now in two Phase 3 trials, while a second program, OP-3136, is a KAT6 inhibitor in Phase 1. Olema's bet is that better-designed oral endocrine therapy can overcome the resistance that limits today's standard of care.
Theravance Biopharma is a South San Francisco biopharmaceutical company built around a focused respiratory franchise. Its flagship product, YUPELRI (revefenacin), is the first and only once-daily nebulized long-acting muscarinic antagonist approved in the U.S. for COPD maintenance, commercialized with partner Viatris. Spun out of Innoviva in 2014 and trading on Nasdaq as TBPH, the company combines a profitable marketed product with high-value royalty assets - including a now-monetized stake in GSK's TRELEGY - and runs a lean, capital-disciplined model rather than chasing scale.
Alentis Therapeutics is a Swiss clinical-stage biotech built around a single, unusual biological target: Claudin-1 (CLDN1), a tight-junction protein that becomes exposed in both fibrotic tissue and solid tumors. Founded in 2019 on the discovery of physician-scientist Professor Thomas Baumert, the company develops first-in-class monoclonal antibodies and antibody-drug conjugates that bind exposed CLDN1 to reverse organ fibrosis and treat CLDN1-positive cancers. Headquartered in Allschwil near Basel with R&D roots in Strasbourg, Alentis has raised roughly $365 million across rounds, including a $181.4 million Series D in November 2024, and is running clinical trials for its lead antibody lixudebart (ALE.F02) and two ADCs, ALE.P02 and ALE.P03.
Biorce is a Barcelona-based healthtech company building AI-native infrastructure for clinical trials. Its core product, Aika, helps pharmaceutical companies, biotechs and CROs design regulator-ready trial protocols in roughly 90 seconds, drawing on a corpus of more than one million clinical studies and 260,000+ protocols. By cutting protocol design time by at least 50% and flagging regulatory and feasibility risks early, Biorce aims to compress the years and billions of dollars it takes to bring a drug to market - so treatments reach patients sooner. In February 2026 it closed a USD $52.5M Series A led by DST Global, the largest Series A to date in the Iberian healthtech and AI ecosystem.
Brenig Therapeutics is a neurology-focused biotechnology company building disease-modifying small-molecule therapies for Parkinson's disease and other neurodegenerative disorders. Founded in 2021 and backed by $65 million in Series A funding led by NEA, Brenig pairs AI- and machine-learning-driven discovery with structure-based design to engineer brain-penetrant molecules that hit the central nervous system while sparing the rest of the body. Its lead candidate, BT-267, is a selective LRRK2 inhibitor now in human trials, followed by BT-409, a brain-selective NLRP3 inflammasome inhibitor targeting neuroinflammation.
ClinChoice is a mid-size, global, full-service contract research organization (CRO) that helps pharmaceutical, biotech, medical device, and consumer health companies run clinical trials and bring drugs and devices to market. Founded in 1995 and headquartered in Horsham, Pennsylvania, the firm employs roughly 4,000 people across the Americas, Europe, and Asia-Pacific, offering clinical development, biometrics, safety/pharmacovigilance, regulatory affairs, post-marketing real-world evidence, and technology services. After rebranding from Fountain Medical Development (FMD K&L) in 2020 and raising a $150M Series E in 2022, ClinChoice has grown through acquisitions to serve six of the top ten pharma companies while focusing on emerging and mid-size biotech innovators.
Granata Bio is a Boston-based biopharmaceutical company building a portfolio of fertility and reproductive-health therapies. Founded in 2018, it in-licenses and develops medications used in IVF outside the US, runs its own clinical programs, and is expanding into ovarian biology. Its lead asset is an investigational human menopausal gonadotropin in the pivotal Phase III GRACE study, and its 2025 acquisition of Oviva Therapeutics added a first-in-class therapeutic aimed at extending ovarian function. The company targets the multi-billion-dollar global infertility medication market with the goal of expanding patient access and improving IVF outcomes.
Noveome Biotherapeutics is a Pittsburgh clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company built around ST266, a multi-targeted secretome of hundreds of biologically active proteins harvested from a novel population of amnion-derived cells. Rather than transplanting cells, Noveome delivers the healing signals those cells secrete - aiming to modulate inflammation, protect nerves, and accelerate tissue repair. Its lead program treats necrotizing enterocolitis, a devastating gut disease in premature infants, with additional pipeline work spanning ophthalmology, neurology, and dermatology.
Ollin Biosciences is an Austin-based clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company building a portfolio of best-in-disease therapies for vision-threatening eye diseases. Founded in 2023 and launched publicly in September 2025 with $100M in Series A financing, Ollin in-licenses validated drug candidates and races them through head-to-head trials against the market leaders. Its lead program, OLN324, is a VEGF/Ang2 bispecific antibody for wet age-related macular degeneration and diabetic macular edema that posted superior anatomic results versus Roche's blockbuster Vabysmo in a Phase 1b study.
TORL BioTherapeutics is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company in Culver City, California developing antibody-based cancer therapies, including antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs) and monoclonal antibodies. Built on discoveries from the UCLA laboratory of Dennis Slamon - the scientist behind Herceptin and Ibrance - TORL is advancing a pipeline against novel cancer targets such as Claudin 6, Claudin 18.2, CDH17, and DLK1. Its lead program, TORL-1-23 (ixotatug vedotin), a CLDN6-targeted ADC, is in pivotal trials for platinum-resistant ovarian cancer. The company has raised over $450 million across multiple rounds, including a $96 million Series C in October 2025.
Vima Therapeutics is a Cambridge, Massachusetts clinical-stage biotechnology company developing VIM0423, a potential first-in-class once-daily oral therapy for isolated dystonia and Parkinson's disease. The drug selectively targets muscarinic cholinergic receptors in the brain to correct the dopamine-acetylcholine imbalance underlying these movement disorders. Incubated at Atlas Venture and led by neurologist Bernard Ravina, the company emerged from stealth in 2025 and has raised a $100 million Series A.
Zag Bio is a Cambridge, Massachusetts biotechnology startup pioneering thymus-targeted medicines for autoimmune disease. Founded and incubated by Polaris Partners and launched in October 2025 with an $80M Series A, the company designs bifunctional antibodies that ferry self-antigens directly into the thymus - the organ that trains immune cells - to re-teach the body to tolerate its own tissue rather than attack it. Its lead program, ZAG-101, aims to prevent or delay Type 1 diabetes by inducing durable, antigen-specific central tolerance instead of broad immunosuppression.
Crossbow Therapeutics is a Cambridge, Massachusetts biotechnology company building a new class of cancer immunotherapies. Its T-Bolt platform engineers TCR-mimetic antibodies - T-cell engagers that recognize tiny peptide fragments displayed on a cancer cell's surface (peptide-HLA complexes), opening up intracellular proteins that conventional antibodies cannot reach. The lead program, CBX-250, is a first-in-class T-cell engager in a Phase 1 trial for relapsed or refractory myeloid malignancies. Backed by more than $157M in venture funding, Crossbow aims to expand the universe of targetable cancer antigens.
Regenacy Pharmaceuticals is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company developing oral, isoform-selective histone deacetylase (HDAC) inhibitors to restore normal protein function. Spun out in 2016 from the assets of Acetylon Pharmaceuticals after Celgene's acquisition, Regenacy's lead drug ricolinostat (ACY-1215) is a selective HDAC6 inhibitor in clinical development for painful diabetic peripheral neuropathy and other peripheral neuropathies, with an additional portfolio of HDAC1,2 inhibitors targeting blood diseases and cognitive disorders.
Simcha Therapeutics is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company in New Haven, Connecticut that uses directed evolution to engineer next-generation cytokine immunotherapies for cancer. Its lead program, ST-067, is a first-in-class 'decoy-resistant' interleukin-18 (IL-18) variant engineered to evade the natural decoy protein (IL-18BP) that tumors exploit to silence the immune system. Spun out of Aaron Ring's lab at Yale School of Medicine and backed by $40M in Series B financing, Simcha is advancing ST-067 through Phase 1/2 trials in solid tumors and partnering with Janssen to armor CAR T cell therapies.
Terran Biosciences is a platform biotech developing therapeutics and technologies for neurological and psychiatric disease. It runs one of the industry's largest psychedelic development programs - psilocybin, LSD, MDMA derivatives and novel prodrugs - alongside late-stage schizophrenia assets licensed from Sanofi and Pierre Fabre, GMP psychedelic manufacturing, and NM-101, an FDA-cleared cloud platform for neuromelanin MRI analysis.
Calluna Pharma is an Oslo-based clinical-stage biotech building first-in-class antibodies that switch off the upstream signals driving inflammation and fibrosis. Formed in 2024 from the merger of Oxitope Pharma and Arxx Therapeutics and backed by a EUR 75 million Series A, the company targets damage-associated molecular patterns (DAMPs) such as S100A4 to halt diseases like idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis at their root rather than managing symptoms.
Hinge Bio is a clinical-stage biotechnology company in Burlingame, California, building next-generation antibody therapeutics on its proprietary GEM-DIMER platform. The platform engineers multivalent, multispecific antibodies that bind their targets cooperatively for dramatically enhanced potency. Its lead candidate, HB2198, is a B cell-depleting agent targeting both CD19 and CD20 with enhanced natural killer cell engagement, now in Phase 1 trials for systemic lupus erythematosus and lupus nephritis. The company raised a $30M Series A led by Point72 in January 2025.
Ron Cohen, M.D., is a biotech entrepreneur with a 30-year record of building companies that ship medicines for the nervous system. He founded Acorda Therapeutics in 1995 from his apartment and grew it into a public company that brought multiple sclerosis and Parkinson's therapies to market. After Acorda's sale to Merz in 2024, he evaluated roughly two dozen startups before taking the CEO seat at Oryon Cell Therapies in March 2026, a Belmont, Massachusetts company developing autologous neuron replacement therapy for Parkinson's. He is a past Chair of the Biotechnology Innovation Organization (BIO).
Samuel Murphy is co-founder and CEO of Salubris Biotherapeutics, a clinical-stage biotech in Gaithersburg, Maryland developing complex biologics for cardiovascular, oncology, and neurodegenerative disease. A Penn-trained virologist who did his postdoc in the lab that became Spark Therapeutics, he spent a decade in pharma strategy consulting and life-sciences investment banking before joining Salubris in 2017 and taking the CEO seat in 2020. His lead program, JK07, is the first clinical-stage selective ErbB4 agonist aimed at being a disease-modifying biologic for heart failure. He also runs international business development for the company's Chinese parent, Shenzhen Salubris Pharmaceuticals.
Mark Gaffney is the Chief Executive Officer and Board member of Calluna Pharma, an Oslo-based clinical-stage biopharma chasing inflammatory and fibrotic disease by tuning the body's innate immune system. A mechanical engineer turned lawyer turned dealmaker, he spent two decades building and selling biotechs - Oxular went to Regeneron, Vedere Bio to Novartis - before taking the helm of a company born from the merger of Oxitope Pharma and Arxx Therapeutics and freshly backed by a 75 million euro Series A.
Eran Steinberg is a serial entrepreneur, prolific inventor, and IP strategist who co-founded FotoNation in 1997 - selling it, buying it back, and doing it again a third time. Best known for pioneering the automatic red-eye removal technology now standard in virtually every digital camera and smartphone on earth, he holds 300+ patents across imaging, medical devices, and drug development. A licensed USPTO patent agent with four graduate and undergraduate degrees - including both a B.F.A. in Fine Art Photography and an M.S. in Imaging Science - he bridges the worlds of deep technology and creative vision. Currently CEO and Chairman of Vaica Medical and Chairman of FotoNation following a third management buyout, he also lectures at Johns Hopkins University.
Celine Halioua is the founder and CEO of Loyal, a San Francisco biotech company developing the first FDA-approved drug for lifespan extension - starting with dogs. Born in Austin, Texas to a Moroccan mother and German father, she studied neuroscience at UT Austin and nanotechnology at Uppsala University before pursuing a DPhil at Oxford on the health economics of gene therapy. She left Oxford to join Laura Deming's Longevity Fund as Chief of Staff, then founded Loyal in 2019 at age 24. With $250M+ in total funding and the largest clinical trial ever conducted in animal health (1,300+ dogs across 70+ clinics), Loyal's lead drug LOY-002 has cleared FDA safety and efficacy hurdles - putting it on track to become the first longevity drug ever approved for any species.
Dr. Michelle Longmire is the co-founder and CEO of Medable, the leading platform for agentic AI in clinical development. A Stanford-trained physician-scientist who grew up in a Los Alamos nuclear-research family, she pivoted from dermatology to founding Medable in 2015 after hitting enrollment walls in her own clinical research. Under her leadership, Medable has raised over $500 million in venture capital, deployed its platform in roughly 400 trials across 70 countries in 120 languages, and served more than one million patients globally - transforming how the world runs clinical trials.
Kardigan is a South San Francisco heart health company modernizing cardiovascular drug development. Founded by the team behind MyoKardia, it pairs a late-stage clinical pipeline in dilated cardiomyopathy, acute severe hypertension and calcific aortic valve stenosis with a 'cardiac intelligence' platform - real-world patient data and AI - to match disease drivers to the right responders.
Dinesh V. Patel, Ph.D. is the President and CEO of Protagonist Therapeutics (NASDAQ: PTGX), a Newark, California-based biopharmaceutical company he has led since December 2008. With over 38 years spanning medicinal chemistry, drug discovery, venture capital co-founding, and three CEO stints, Patel has guided Protagonist from a peptide-platform startup to a company with its first FDA-approved drug - ICOTYDE (icotrokinra), approved March 2026 as the world's first targeted oral peptide for moderate-to-severe plaque psoriasis, partnered with Johnson & Johnson.
Frank D. Lee is the Chief Executive Officer and Board Director of Pacira BioSciences, a specialty pharmaceutical company pioneering non-opioid pain management solutions. A 30-year industry veteran who immigrated to the United States from South Korea, Lee built his career across Eli Lilly, Janssen, Novartis, and a 13-year tenure at Genentech where he oversaw $11 billion in global product sales. Before joining Pacira in January 2024, he led Forma Therapeutics through a transformative journey from drug-discovery startup to clinical-stage biotech, culminating in a $1.1 billion acquisition by Novo Nordisk in 2022. At Pacira, Lee is executing the '5x30' strategy - five bold objectives to transform the company into an innovative biopharma powerhouse by 2030, including advancing the PCRX-201 gene therapy for knee osteoarthritis, which has already earned FDA Regenerative Medicine Advanced Therapy (RMAT) designation.
Joe Belanoff is the co-founder and CEO of Corcept Therapeutics, a Redwood City-based biopharmaceutical company he has led since 1999. A physician-scientist trained at Amherst College, Columbia University, and Stanford, Belanoff pivoted from academia to entrepreneurship after co-developing intellectual property on cortisol modulation with Stanford psychiatry chair Alan Schatzberg. Under his leadership, Corcept achieved two landmark FDA approvals: Korlym in 2012 for Cushing's syndrome and Lifyorli in 2026 for platinum-resistant ovarian cancer - the first selective glucocorticoid receptor antagonist ever approved. He maintains an adjunct professorship at Stanford while steering a company with over $760 million in annual revenue and more than 30 ongoing clinical studies.
Michael F. Bigham is a veteran biopharmaceutical executive and investor who spent nearly a decade as Chairman and CEO of Paratek Pharmaceuticals, guiding the company through the FDA approval and commercial launch of NUZYRA (omadacycline) - a novel tetracycline-class antibiotic tackling drug-resistant bacterial infections. A Stanford MBA and CPA with roots in Gilead Sciences' early days, he has built, funded, and led companies across the full arc of drug development. He now operates as founder and managing director of Firebrand River Capital.
Rick Winningham is the CEO of Theravance Biopharma, a biopharmaceutical company focused on organ-selective medicines for serious diseases including COPD, rare neurological conditions, and inflammatory diseases. With over 40 years in the pharmaceutical industry - including 13 years as CEO of Innoviva and 15 years at Bristol-Myers Squibb - Winningham has built a career defined by transformative drug development, strategic company leadership, and a widely recognized commitment to mentoring the next generation of biopharma executives, particularly women in leadership. He was named the 2026 HBA Honorable Mentor by the Healthcare Businesswomen's Association.